A hard-left French lawmaker sanctioned for raising a Palestinian flag in parliament said he would “rather be on the right side of history than stick to the rules of the National Assembly.”

The lower house of parliament voted to suspend Sebastien Delogu, a deputy for the hard-left La France Insoumise (LFI) party, for 15 days and to half his pay as a lawmaker over two months, the harshest sanction possible.

“It’s the first time that a foreign flag has been raised in the assembly, but it’s appropriate given what’s at stake, when you have people, who are like us, on the other side of the Mediterranean being massacred,” Delogu told Reuters at a pro-Palestinian protest in Paris.

LFI has positioned itself as a defender of the Palestinians, making the issue central to its campaign for the June 9 European Parliament election.